Technically the Guardian was going to be my main, but after playing it in BWE1 and the playing the Mesmer, my second choice for a main, I dropped the Guardian and knew then I was going to main a mesmer. I LOVE it. Greatsword/staff is my current set-up and I think it works best for me so far. They both compliment each other very well, and both give me options every fight.

I have been doing a bit more WvW than PvE the past few hours and I have to say, WvW is extremely fun. If my server was not getting dominated by a PvP server, I might level up only that way. However, since it is, I am forced to do quests

Guardian game play is good, but its just kind of 'flat' for me. In PvE I can just wade in, swing a hammer, and smash through everything but their performance in WvW is fairly lacking thanks to a slow/weak scepter cast and a weak AoE on too long of a CD.

Mesmer took me a little while to get the hang of, but once I did its a force too be reckoned with and a lot of fun to play. The only bad part is that I don't think shatters for clones do nearly as much damage as they should and clones are also prone to shattering prematurely (too far from target) compared to phantasms. I'm going with a condition-based weapon set and build and rarely do I ever even take a hit.

Engineer is pretty fun too and will be looking at that next. Haven't gotten far enough to get the flamethrower setup yet but that looks pretty boss.

Last edited by HBpapa; 2012-08-29 at 12:22 AM.

You see, their morals, their code...it's a bad joke, dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world allows them to be. I'll show you. When the chips are down, these...These "civilized" people...they'll eat each other. See, I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead of the curve

In nearly any rpg that had a warlock type class, i'd pick a warlock.
So naturally i started out with a Necro, but after leveling it to 17, it just didn't fit.
Made a Mesmer in the meantime, which is now level 29 and i still think is very fun to play!

Also still very tempted to try out a Guardian, but that'll have to wait till my mesmer is 80.

I love my profession choice, but I was a little disappointed with weapon choice. I really wanted to be a SwordSword Greatswor Mesmer. But I really didlt like the Greatsword and while SwordSword is amazing for solo PvE, I found it lackluster in dungeon content.

Yes... and no. No because I knew what I was getting myself into with Guardian (yeah yeah, I think I finally settled... we'll see though). But no because I know that in large battles I'll be a good target and may die quite frequently, and in WvW my best use defending will be building siege weapons rather than using my own abilities. I know that if I get in melee range in Zerg versus Zerg, I'll be slaughtered, and my "range" weapons don't have very good damage out put.

Last edited by theredviola; 2012-08-29 at 12:20 AM.

"Do not only practice your art, but force yourself into its secrets, for it and knowledge can raise men to the divine." -- Ludwig Van Beethoven

Chose Thief when all the classes where revealed (i either play Rogues / Thiefs / Ninjas or Dark casters , Warlocks , Necros etc) and loving the Dagger / Pistol for main set with Shortbow for secondary set which i use for the big boss events that hate melee. I mean i know im supposed to dodge but some are hard to see coming and then bam, one shotted.

Stealth plays such a tiny role that it hardly feels like a thief/rogue class

Dagger Mainhand & Pistol Off-hand.

Precision, power and crit dmg, ignore all the other stats (aim for at least 40% crit, 50% being the goal).

The key traits are 15 points in Critical Strike (20% chance on crit to gain 1 Initiative) and 10 points in Shadow Arts (gain 2 initiative when using skills that stealth you), then another 10 in Shadow Arts to enter stealth when using steal later on.

Other bonus traits make this build more powerful but aren't required to make it work are the +1 second to stealth, 100% chance to crit when in stealth, entering stealth blinds nearby enemies, stealing deals damage, stealing gives you 3 initiative when used (5 total thanks to Hidden Thief), 40% chance to cause vulnerability on crit etc etc you get the idea.

Utility skills are mostly up to you since you can kill mobs 4+ levels higher than you without taking damage using only your 5 main skills + steal but you can probably guess what works best (precision passive, Hide in Shadows (heal & stealth), Shadow Refuge, Roll for Initiative, Smoke Screen etc.

I've not tried Scorpion Wire yet but that could be interesting and as for your elite skill I like to use it as a "oh shit something went wrong and pulled 10 mobs" panic button so Theives Guild works nicely for that, the other one I use is Take Root but that is Sylvari only, the final 2 are untested but they are probably just as useful.

Anyway this can be played two ways, either you pop into stealth every 2 seconds to get off many Backstabs (does double damage if hitting from behind, can be buffed to 100% crit with traits) or you can chain spam Black Powder every 4 seconds and tank pretty much anything.

If they aren't dead after that (takes about 5 seconds) another Heartseeker will likely finish them off, or you can just re-stealth with Black Powder, or Steal, or Hide in Shadows or Shadow Refuge, whatever floats your boat.

My main class ended up dissapointing me. I picked human elementalist expecting something like a WoW mage. But the damage is mediocre, the sheer amount of WORK you have to do with attument-switching is crazy (just to kite mobs as effectively as engineers or rangers who only need to use 1 actionbar) and overall it turned out to be a support profession far than a damage-oriented profession. Way too much damage is tied to AoE's which are either stupidly delayed (either a tiny radius, easily avoidable or take forever to take effect) and they do mediocre damage so it's not worth it. You have to predict where your target will be and place your AoE accordingly so it takes effect 2-3 seconds after you've cast it. All the damage is just so damn delayed, in PvP it's painful. Being the squishiest profession with the lowest defense+health was the final nail in the coffin.

My Elementalist is currently my main and what I was intending on leveling since playing it on the stress tests (tried other classes on the BWEs). I think scepter/dagger is perhaps a little used weapon set. I feel pretty powerful on it and I don't switch attunements hardly at all and can take out mobs without too much difficulty. I usually use fire though. Occasionally air as well. The cooldowns are up fast enough that I usually don't feel the need to switch attunements. I use the storm signet, I forget what it's called (for 7, it does an AOE storm based on attunement) for groups of mobs as well as Pheonix, and the 4 &5 dagger skill seems to clear things fast. I'm only level 21 but look forward to playing it. I have tried many other classes (I have 6 characters so far) but Elementalist is my highest. Sometimes I do get tired of being a class cannon and play my warrior for something different. I do recommend that anyone on the fence about Elementalist try out scepter/dagger, as it might change your mind.

Somewhat yet. Engineer has very little choice in weapon (pistol, shield, rifle) and cannot swap weaponsets in combat. To make up for this, i assumed, it had Kits.
However these kits are proving to just be a pain. Suffering from a whole range of problems. Not having stats and losing the stats on your weapons when you equip one. Not benefiting from Sigils. Broken mechanics. No autocast. Requiring skillpoints to get, and also capped away in tiers. They are no better then bundles you may come across in the wilds, or during events.

Since an ANet dev said they wanted Kits to benefit from Sigils i thought they'd actually fix these issues and make then work and compare like real weapons. I was wrong.
I enjoy playing my Engineer, but rifle or pistol gets old after a while. And there is just nothing else to switch to to get some variety. I could use a kit more full-time, but im just gimping and frustrating myself after a short while from having to spam 1 and watching abilities bug out. And losing a chunk of my stats.

I'll level this badboy to 80 and switch to another profession. Ranger and Elementalist appealed to me in the Beta aswell.

Nope, not in the bit, was thinking of playing a thief until I read up on the mesmer 2 weeks before release, got me to pre-purchase it, played it during the 6 hour stress test and loved it ever since, not dissapointing in anyway, love the class color, the mechanics, the trolling that can be done with it. It's just the perfect class for me.

Somewhat yet. Engineer has very little choice in weapon (pistol, shield, rifle) and cannot swap weaponsets in combat. To make up for this, i assumed, it had Kits.
However these kits are proving to just be a pain. Suffering from a whole range of problems. Not having stats and losing the stats on your weapons when you equip one. Not benefiting from Sigils. Broken mechanics. No autocast. Requiring skillpoints to get, and also capped away in tiers. They are no better then bundles you may come across in the wilds, or during events.

Yeah. I love healing/supporting in WoW, so I tought Engineer would be a nice support class. Turrets, med-gun, medi packs (Lvl 30 now)
- rifle base skills are fun, the rest - not so much
- turrets die in PvP and PvE as soon as I drop them (in PvE you can abuse the environment, quite fun to place rocket turrets on walls or mountains, doesn't work in PvP... AoE-> down)
- elixier gun lacks any sort of fun feedback, medi packs = useless
- flamethrower rocks in theory, but melee range gets you killed, also targeting problems

I've really no idea where to go next. I liked the human storyline so far, but it's hard to continue when the class feels wrong and broken. Also played thief to 15, was fun in PvE but lacks ranged abilities for wvwvw. Mesmer? Ele? Necro?

I played all classes to level 10 now and I wish I hadn't. During BWE the choice seemed obvious: Elementalist. I loved the fact that there's so much skill involved in picking the right attunement at the right time. Afterwards I tried warrior which is the first melee class I EVER enjoyed in an mmo and stuk to it until level 30. Afterwards I played thief which was awesome and guardian which actually felt like a true paladin or virtuous fighter of justice.

Let's put it like this, I liked them all especially because they truly have unique game-play. The class I liked least but still enjoyed was Mesmer.

Gotta hand it to the devs, they made very distinct classes with unique game-play and they added depth (much like sub-classes) to them with weapon swapping.